Abs of Cakes: Candyland Cake

I hope everyone is having a fabulous Summer! Mine has been a productive one full of designing, cake making, food truck chasing, festival hopping, and just enjoying our Southern California weather. I'm absolutely loving it! And I have so many cakes to share with all of you...let me begin with a cake I did back in June. My niece, Journey turned 3 and had a Candyland themed party. It was such a fun theme to work with and I was excited to use such fun vibrant colors.

Journey's mom (my talented cousin Joy) is super creative especially when it comes to event planning....she came up with these very cute invitations...

I started this cake by going to the candy store....that was a no brainer! I had an idea of which candies I wanted to include, so I wouldn't go candy crazy. I know those cavity causers can be a bit pricey. One thing I knew I had to incorporate into the design was a road just like you'd see in on the Candyland board game....I decided to used Airheads to accomplish this.

The candy became my inspiration. I got some really good finds while shopping for some. Then the sketches followed after. [You might be able to tell that I have a background in interior design with how I labeled my cake sketches "Plan View" and "Elevation".....my fellow designers would appreciate that ;)]

I found a candy mold that spelled H-A-P-P-Y B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y. I decided I could use the most vibrant colored candy melts (colored chocolates) and incorporated them into the cake. One of my favorite finds at the candy store was the Letter gummy candies....I really had to dig in that bin to find letters that spelled J-O-U-R-N-E-Y L-A-N-D but it was well worth it! I just loved how they added to the theme.

There were not many cake decorating techniques involved with this cake...it was basically decorating and being creative with candy and colors. A white frosted cake became my blank canvas. I stacked 3 tiers sized just right so that the candy would fit nicely on it. I even staggered the tiers a bit to create depth when it's viewed. Since I was using all this sugar from the candies already, I opted on a no-fondant cake. Instead I used Pastry Pride, which is a whipped frosting similar to Cool Whip...if you've eaten a store bought cake, then you've had it before. This also made sticking on the candy a lot easier.

I think I was way too excited to play with all the colorful candies that I forgot to take pictures of my process in between, so you'll mainly see the finished product and aftermath :) my bad.